I have mentioned this before. My Mom, who will turn 84 on the 4th of July, spends atleast 35% of her social security on health care. It’s truly horrible. She could not live alone if she wanted to and was able to. There’s no way. I do wonder what so many seniors without families to help them do. It’s really sad that we treat our neediest and weakest the way we do.

Senate Republicans went into their customary obstruction mode again late Thursday, choosing to protect the interests of insurance companies while shortchanging the health care needs of older Americans and ignoring the will of the majority.

Thirty-nine Republicans supported a filibuster of a bill, passed overwhelmingly by the House, that would prevent a 10.6 percent cut in the reimbursement rate for doctors accepting Medicare patients starting July 1. To offset the cut, the bill would have trimmed taxpayer subsidies to insurance companies participating in the Medicare Advantage program. A bipartisan majority in the Senate supported the bill, but the usual coterie of block-and-blame conservatives played their “Dr. No” role as they have since the beginning of the term.

Arizona Sen. John McCain was a no-show for Thursday’s vote. Illinois Sen. Barack Obama voted for the bill.

More here

I watched some of this debate last night. McConnell’s pitch was why vote for it when we know Bush is going to veto it, which makes NO sense. If enough voted for it, he couldn’t veto it. Harry Reid had this to say to McConnell’s bullshit:

How cool is this?

Patients suffering from chronic pain, loss of appetite and other ailments that marijuana is said to alleviate can get their pot with a dose of convenience at the Herbal Nutrition Center, where a large machine will dole out the drug around the clock.

“Convenient access, lower prices, safety, anonymity,” inventor and owner Vincent Mehdizadeh said, extolling the benefits of the machine.

My money is on the “un-pluggers”. Similar to the abortion argument, high visibility is a weapon of the far-right fringe. They’ll be laying out their plan of attack tonight at the area PTA meeting I’m sure.

For Mark Williams, it’s a simple business proposition: He can’t afford to sell medicine for less than what he paid for it.

But he says that’s what Washington expects him to do, come January.

“When I talk to other businesspeople and say that, they look at you cross-eyed, like, `No way,’” said Williams, the pharmacist-owner of the Medicine Shoppe in Kansas City, Kan., for the past 18 years. “But it’s going to happen.”

It’s a common warning from the nation’s community pharmacists, who have been watching their ranks dwindle in recent years. Now they’re looking for help from Congress, fearful that reductions in the amount the federal government reimburses them for Medicaid drugs will drive more of them out of business.

Yet much more than the livelihood of pharmacists is at stake.

If the changes proceed, critics warn, tens of thousands of Americans who depend on Medicaid could be denied life’saving drugs or forced to drive long distances to get them. Medicaid is the federal’state program that subsidizes health costs for 53 million low-income people and those with disabilities.

More at McClatchyDC

from United Press International

BOSTON, July 29 (UPI) — Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston has granted a small surgical team permission to perform partial face transplants, The Boston Globe said Sunday.

The move makes Brigham and Women’s the second hospital in the United States to give permission to perform the controversial procedure.

The world’s first face transplant was done a year and a half ago on a woman in France who had been mauled by her dog. Since then, the procedure has been fiercely debated because patients who undergo the surgery must take powerful drugs that were once reserved for patients with life-threatening conditions, the Globe reported.

Those who argue against face transplants say if the body rejects the tissue, another operation to remove the tissue could leave the patient more scarred than before. However, the Globe reported, some doctors argue that face transplants can dramatically transform the lives of people who are disfigured to the point where they do not work or go out.

United Press International

LONDON, July 27 (UPI) — Doctors are prescribing antibiotics for up to 80 percent of cases of sore throat, respiratory tract infections and sinusitis, found a British study.

Although prescriptions of antibiotics for respiratory tract infections declined during the 1990s, primary care physicians still continue to prescribe antibiotics for a high proportion of infections even if the causes of the symptoms are likely to be viral — which cannot be treated by antibiotics, according to the study published in a supplement to the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy.

This practice is hindering efforts to prevent the spread of antibiotic resistance, whereby disease-causing bacteria become unresponsive to the most commonly used drug treatments, according to Dr. Douglas Fleming, a member of the United Kingdom’s Specialist Advisory Committee on Antimicrobial Resistance.

The researchers searched for all consultations between 1998 and 2001 for conditions that might have resulted in an antibiotic prescription.

The most common causes of antibacterial prescribing identified in the study were upper respiratory tract infection, lower respiratory tract infection, sore throat, urinary tract infection, otitis media, conjunctivitis, vague skin infections, sinusitis, otitis externa and impetigo.